Baja, Mexico
27th October 2006
Hello,
Spending a couple of weeks off the bike, which I've left in Pasadena (Los Angeles) at my cousin Jennifer's until Nov 3rd, while my kids are over to spend a 12 days with their Dad. The bike, which has performed flawlessly so far, is rearing to go after having a full service, a new set of tyres and a wash, at BMW of Hollywood in LA.
Unfortunately I had a minor disaster a few days ago, and dropped my laptop, which destroyed the hard-drive. As I've been backing-up and mailing photos home (on CD) from time-to-time, I have lost a few photos from the southern US (and 3 days of GPS tracklogs), but I don't think that many assuming all CD's arrive home safely. But as I don't have photos here with me now I can't produce a Trip Report covering the US leg of my journey before I return home.
I've enjoyed the US, but in some ways it was a bit too easy after the challenges and more extreme/remote locations of the Arctic of Alaska, Yukon, North-West Territories etc. I entered the US from Canada into NE Idaho, before crossing into the ranch-country of Montana where I rode half of the spectacular Going to the Sun Road through Glacier National Park (the NE half was closed). I stopped in Kalispell, and had a couple of beers in the spit-and-sawdust Moose's Head Saloon. I then headed east so's I could enter Yellowstone National Park from the east via. the Beartooth Pass, which was another spectacular ride at altitudes up to 11,000 ft, with snow on the ground. The weather deteriorated badly in Yellowstone, with some heavy rain persuading me to spend a night at the huge (and hugely expensive!) lodge at Old Faithful, the famous geyser. Next day, it was off south to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, which was pleasant enough to tempt me to stay for a second night. Very much a cowboy town, as is most of Montana and Wyoming - to be honest, I didn't find much else in these two states! There's a bar (Million Dollar Cowboy?) with cowboy saddles as bar-stools. And there are quite a few bikes about in the more scenic parts - probably 98% Harleys, and all with helmet-free riders.
After Wyoming, I entered Utah and stayed a night in Salt Lake City. Utah's a little bizarre (to me!) in that as a Mormon state, bars cannot sell alcohol without food, except brew-pubs where they brew on the premises. From Salt Lake City I was off towards one of the highlights of my trip - the red-rock and canyon country around the southern Utah and Arizona border. There is an awful lot of spectacular scenery around there, much of it familiar from westerns, and I ended up zig-zagging around a lot to make sure I saw all I'd wanted to. Words cannot do justice to this area, but unfortunately I don't have most of my pictures here anymore so can't upload any! The areas I visited included the National Parks of Arches, Canyonlands, Bryce Canyon, and Zion, followed by Monument Valley - and the big one, Grand Canyon, which I managed to visit on both the North Rim and south, where I took a short light-aircraft flight over the canyon - unfortunately, they're no longer allowed to fly into the canyon due to a number of accidents. Probably just as well as it was Friday 13th when I was there! There was a spectacular 100-mile dirt loop into the bottom of Canyonlands NP passable by 4x4 or trail bike, the White Rim Trail, which I really wanted to do, but due to the flash-floods the trail was closed. A vehicle had been trapped down there for two days, unable to escape, and another group had been rescued by helicopter. Here's a picture I rescued from my camera-card, looking down at one end:
I thought I was on quite a big trip, but en-route from Canyonlands to Bryce National Parks, I pitched my tent in a soggy campsite (after the flash-floods, as the tarmac road had been washed into the river) - the chap I was next to was on a bicycle and was riding solo from New York to San Diego over three months!
After the spectacle of Monument Valley I visited a few other places in Arizona that interested me - the Barringer Meteor Crater east of Flagstaff, the Titan Missile Museum near Tucson, Tombstone, and the Biosphere 2 complex.
The Titan Missile site was intriguing - the only preserved one of 54 silos that had housed the Titan 2 nuclear missiles which Reagan negotiated away in the SALT treaties of the 80's. The guide who showed us around had been a commander of one site when they were operational (I think from 1963 'til the mid '80's?) - he knew which city in the USSR it had been programmed to eliminate, but this information is still classified today. After decommissioning, as part of the agreement to keep the site intact, the 760-tonne sliding concrete-and-steel hatch above the missile was permanently fixed half-open, so the site could never be re-activated, and the decommissioning be verified by Russian spy satellites. The other 53 have been completely levelled. He told us how he had since had a couple of personnel from a similar Russian installation visit since the end of the cold war - they had been praying the Americans didn't "do anything stupid", in the same way the Americans were praying the Russians didn't. The whole underground installation was constructed to ensure that the four crew were still able to launch their missile after the US had suffered nuclear devastation. The missile would be fired some 200 miles into space and reach it's Russian destination in just over half an hour.
I'm not sure which struck me as saddest out of my next two visits - Tombstone with it's wannabe cowboys or the Biosphere. Tombstone was of course where the famous Gunfight at the OK Corral took place, in 1881 between the Earps and Clantons. If I had been there a week later I would have been there for Helldorado, when the town is overwhelmed with people staging mock gunfights in the streets. Amongst all the nonsense there were some genuine items of interest, such as the Courthouse, which is now a museum.
Biosphere 2 was built in the Arizona desert in the 1990's by a Texas oil billionaire as an experiment - a miniature self-sustaining "world" - Biosphere 1 being Planet Earth. The hope was with the right mix of plants and crops etc. that it would be self-sufficient and able to support human life, possibly as a forerunner to colonising Mars, but it never really worked. Oxygen had to be introduced, inhabitants were fired, seals were cut, and now the whole complex, although still just about open to visitors, is becoming overgrown, derelict, and feels as if it will soon be abandoned to the desert.
I called into Jesse Luggage in Phoenix whose panniers I use, and got a few useful routes and places to visit In Mexico and Central America from Al Jesse - he had just been into Mexico as far as Copper Canyon on his 1200GS (purely business - testing out some prototype panniers!). I then rode into LA via. Joshua Tree National Park and Twenty-nine Palms. The sun was setting as I came through Joshua Tree, and the ride into LA from the east, in the dark, was pretty hairy. The area is pretty much built up all the way from Twenty-nine Palms , and the freeway very busy, with no opportunity to stop apart from turning off - for around 100 miles or so.
Mexico is a bit of a culture shock after the US, as I thought it would be. They say Mexico to an American is what Morocco is to Europeans. We got pulled over by the Mexican cops yesterday, with myself both not wearing a seatbelt and having left my driving licence back at our hotel. I had the choice of paying them US$150 on the spot, or accompanying them to the station quite a way away and paying around US$250 (so they said). I'd been warned by many people about the Mexican cops, and how they like to plant drugs etc. on you if you get into a dispute when they're trying to supplement their wages, so considering I actually was in the wrong on two counts thought it best to pay up and be on my way.
The legendary Baja 1000 desert race kicks off here in a couple of weeks, which I would like to see, but it's a bit too late for me to hang around for.
As nice as it is to spend time relaxing with my children, I'm starting to get itchy feet and really looking forward to getting back on the bike and heading off into the unknown again!
I'll try not to drop my laptop and post a Google Earth file again next time.
Ian Chappel